OPINION: It’s our duty to make life the best it can be

By Richard Wood

I’M standing here before the name plate of my grandfather in the Pozieres military cemetery in the valley of the Somme in France. It’s a hollow feeling as I know he is not there, one of the thousands of young soldiers unaccounted for on the battlefield.

I look over the hundreds of headstones of the young men who are buried there and wonder at the grief of so many fathers. Pozieres is one of many similar burial places throughout the Somme.

I have found my grandfather John Richard Wood, aged 28, and will soon search two other sites for the actual graves of his brothers Sam and Joe.

The cemeteries dot the hillsides; each headstone a reminder how little we have learnt from the ‘War to end all Wars’. In Copenhagen the political elite discusses the world’s future while I despondently stand in the biting cold of a Somme morning gazing at the neat rows of headstones.

One million and a half young men died on the battlefield from decisions made by others and we still send our young off to die far from home. Will we ever learn the lessons of history or are we incapable of respecting our differences? Leaving our fate in the hands of so-called experts in Copenhagen leaves me cold.

Then something which is such a small gesture fills me once again with optimism as we search for Sam’s grave.

We are having difficulty in finding Faubourg de’ Amiens Cemetery in Arras and have reverted to asking every moving person seen on the street without luck. Dianne enters a café and asks in her three words of French if someone can help. The whole café erupts into advice, some pointing one way others another. Finally after much French discussion of which she has no idea, a robust French man with tattoos and facials scars motions for her to follow him. We follow his van through the streets of Arras finally to the imposing edifice of the Military Cemetery.

He alights and we thank him. He turns to go and I thank him again and tell him my grandfather because I don’t know the word for grand-uncle. He turns back to me holding his heart and telling me with strong emotion he was a soldier in the Legion and proceeds to take his key ring emblem of Arras off his car keys, hands it to me and drives off.

A simple gesture, but as I find the youngest brothers’ grave I feel it at this level, the personal, where our connection to each other is. It is at this level irrespective of race, creed or nationality that real change will take place. We have let other people make monumental decisions on our behalf when there is so much reason and humanity on the street.

Standing in front of a boy’s grave I am brought back to the fundamental idea that we as a people need to express our views more forcibly and that our young people need more than rights of a democracy. They need to have the skills and motivation to participate fully in the political and social order.

My son Arron always remarks at conferences that perhaps the shared experiences and adjustments required by climate change may shape our humanity for the better. I am heartened by his optimism and see clearly that education is a crucial factor in shaping our future.

Kids teaching kids in a small way supports the notion that life is our responsibility and we need to explore the agenda that means something to each of us. At this base level we all have a family and it is a powerful starting point for understanding others and taking action for the common good. Each day we take actions that together will form our collective future.

Not surprisingly, it is this final grave that has the most impact on Dianne and I. Sam was the youngest brother, 20 years-old, when he was killed. I think it is his age that resonates and we have the reaction of parents everywhere. I write a simple inscriptions on a wooden cross that is provided. A poppy is attached. The father in me wishes the three brothers had been brought together rather than buried kilometres apart, but life is not a fairy tale and it is our duty to make it the best that it can be.*

*Richard Wood is the father of Mildura Mayor Liam Wood and former Deputy Lord Mayor of Melbourne Aron Wood.